Arctic ice storm leads to damaged trees, fallen limbs

Published 11:44 am, Sunday, December 1, 2013

Tree limbs litter the ground around Midland following freezing rain weighing down limbs and breaking the off.

Tree limbs litter the ground around Midland following freezing rain weighing down limbs and breaking the off.

Photo: Tim Fischer/Reporter-Telegram

Arctic ice storm leads to damaged trees, fallen limbs

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An arctic blast that blanketed the Permian Basin with a layer of ice last weekend left a trail of tree debris in its wake.

Calls poured into trimming and removal services Monday as the ice started to melt, revealing fallen foliage, broken branches and limb loss.

“We were just overwhelmed,” said James Tuttle, owner of Tree Loving Care, which offers services in Midland.

Tuttle said his company assessed calls and handled the most serious first.

“Monday, we were basically doing triage. We accessed the situations and took care of what was the most hazardous -- getting the broken branches off wires or roofs,” he said.

The city accepts tree and yard waste at its Citizen’s Collection Station at 4100 Smith Road.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 600 vehicles -- 300 each day -- passed through the station to drop off brush, said Morris Williams, city director of solid waste. That’s three times the normal amount of 100 vehicles per day, he said.

“We’re still seeing trees in people’s front yards -- people haven’t really gotten to the point where they are going to trim them yet,” Williams said. “Over the weekend and going into next week, we’ll be able to catch our breath and see how many trees we still have out and assess which citizens still need help.”

Areawide power outages also prompted Oncor to bring vegetation crews to trim trees and branches, said Sue Mercer, the company’s electric delivery manager. Lines broke as ice and snow weighed down branches.

The city accepted 60,000 pounds of tree waste from the electrical provider, Williams said.

“We usually don’t take any commercial dumpers,” he said. “They were trying to get power restored, and we didn’t want to get in the way of that.”

Healthy trees were hit the hardest by the ice storm, with pecans, live oaks and Siberian elms taking the brunt of the damage. Tuttle said.

Trees are stressed from drought conditions in recent years, but healthy ones have more branches, twigs and leaves -- more surface to accumulate ice, said Tuttle, warning homeowners to properly take care of tree waste.

“There is still a tremendous amount of broken branches in the trees, broken over and handing straight down,” he said. “People do need to look up.”